Thomas G. Spiro

Thomas Spiro is a Chemistry professor who moved to the University of Washington after a career at Princeton University, where he was Chair of the Chemistry Department. He pioneered environmental courses, and developed a successful textbook Chemistry of the Environment (University Science Books). He wrote "Earth Wise" with his wife, Helen Spiro. She is a lawyer with extensive educational and legal writing experience. She directed an environmental health sciences institute at Rutgers University and served as assistant to the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. They were joined by Alexandra Soldatova a Ph.D. environmental scientist and an experienced writer and illustrator of scientific papers.

Spiro’s research program focussed on the roles of metal ions in biology and in the environment, on the dynamics of proteins, and on solar photochemistry.

His awards include the ICPP Eraldo Antonini Lifetime Achievment Award (2010), the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry (2004), and the Biophysical Society Founders Award (2004).

He was educated at UCLA (B.S.) and MIT (Ph.D.), and did postdoctoral research in Copenhagen and Stockholm